When you systematically take away what another person is like you lose as much as they do.

(I want to talk about the harm you do to YOURSELVES when you remove another people’s culture.)

Come on God!!! I think I’m making this up.

You’re not.

Ok well I think I just heard you say that I should listen to what you say through the trees and the wind and the rain??

I did.

God are you sure?? That sounds so indigenous, or ethnic somehow - sort of American Indian, or maybe Maori.

What’s wrong with that?

I’m not ethnic or indigenous God! I’m a white boy, out of my depth on this.

Yes you are.

Good. I’m glad we’re agreed on that God. It sounds like something I’d expect to hear in a book about tribal wisdom God??

Yes.

Ok you’d better explain a bit.

There’s a lot to explain.  The thing is that you have so much to learn from each other Mark. Other people groups bring new knowledge to you. They bring discomfort because of cultural differences, but they bring new knowledge too. And you need their knowledge. You need theirs, they need yours. If they remove your culture they do you harm, and if you remove theirs you do them harm.

Okaaay… so what are you saying here God? This conversation has taken a very unexpected turn. I’m completely out of my depth now. This is a political hot potato and I’d rather not be holding on to it. We started out talking about listening to you.

We still are Mark. The emphasis in this discussion, and remember there are MANY discussions you need to have with me about mixing people groups – conversations about what has happened in your history, conversations about what’s happening right now, and conversations about what has yet to happen – but the emphasis in THIS particular discussion is NOT the harm that each group does to the other. 

Right now I want to talk about the harm you do to YOURSELVES when you remove another people’s culture.

God that’s a dangerous thing to say. It sounds like I’m taking a side and I don’t know enough about this to know which side to take. Actually God it sounds like you’re taking a side!

I never take sides Mark. I am never on a side. But I almost always favour the oppressed, so both sides would do well to make sure they never take the role of the oppressor.

I want you to understand that when you systematically take away another people’s culture you lose just as much as they do. You lose the things in their culture which I intended you to gain. You would have gained those things had you asked me how to dance the delicate dance of melding two cultures into one. Melding cultures requires that both cultures are maintained as you join them to make something even better. When one culture is dominated and removed by the other it harms both cultures.

Instead of demanding that they learn your religion, you should have asked me what I wanted you to learn from theirs. Every people group has truth they have received direct from me – some knowingly, some without realising it.

This is getting dangerous God!!

Listen Mark;

“So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about…” ACTS 17:22-23

So God I’m thinking here about ‘EOI’…? I think that’s how the Maori described you, ‘THE ONE GOD’, didn’t they have that concept before we ever turned up? I think they did. I think that’s what they called you?

Google it Mark.

Ok I did - Google says the Maori recognised there was a supreme being called ‘Io’

Yes they did. They owned some of the truth before you got here – and you owned some truth too before you arrived. Think about it. I had spoken to them and they had heard that truth right here in New Zealand before you ever turned up. Imagine if you had asked what they had discovered about Io, imagine if you had learned from them, and they from you and together you had been able to paint a clearer picture of me. Imagine that!

If you had learned their truths from them, you would be able to live more natural lives, you would be able to count your blessings more easily and hear me with less effort.

Really God??

Yes. You say of the indigenous cultures that they are ‘more spiritual’. And you’re right, they are. That was something I intended should be added to your culture. It’s not too late. And if you learn from them, they can then learn from you. My agenda, not yours. You both have things to teach the other. Then together, both of your cultures will more readily embrace third cultures, and fourth and fifth. Each culture adding to and learning from the other. Not dominating but learning from. There are more cultures here already and more still coming Mark. You need to learn this lesson that each new culture brings new truth to add.

Why tell me God?

Because if you had learned from them how to hear me speak in the trees, the wind and the rain it would have seen you strive less Mark. I want you all to strive less. I want you simply to let me talk rather than think you have to strive to be good enough to hear me. 

PRAISE FOR THE FREEDOM DIARIES

The Freedom Diaries will stretch you. It describes Mark’s real life struggle with Doubt as he discovered that he could hear God’s voice every day.Dr Mark Virkler. Author of 4 Keys to hearing God’s Voice. Buffalo. New York.

Like a child on Christmas morning, I was delighted to discover how simple yet wonderful it is to place my hand into the hand of God and listen to his whispers and enjoy his affection.  I could only ask why no one had ever told me he was this good and this close.  I wish I had read this book a long, long time ago.  Daniel Walker. Founder and Executive Director of Nvader. Author of God in a brothel.

This is new and exciting. It’s not the idea of hearing from God that’s new, it’s having conversations back and forth, question and answers. That’s new for most of us. Now I am enjoying my own conversations with God, which always leave me with hope. David Garratt of Scripture in Song. Hawaii.